Postgame Quotes - Maryland 37, West Virginia 0

Opening Statement: “Before I get into talking about the game, I just want to thank the Ravens and the organization for hosting us here today. It was great working with them and they did a tremendous job for us here today. We’re very appreciative of their efforts and their hospitality and everything they did. I want to also thank Under Armour for their continued support and I mean those uniforms, what can you say? They just hit another home run.”

On fan support: “The fan support that we had here today in Baltimore was outstanding. With the way the weather was and how they stood around and got behind us, it was neat. It was a lot of fun.”

On the win: “Any time you win it feels really good, but to be able to shut somebody out is extra special. The thing that I liked about today is it was a total team effort. I thought the offense really did some good things. I thought defensively we really did a super job. When we turned the ball over on offense, the defense ended up getting turnovers right back to us. And then special teams. The special teams were good. We started off a little slow, and then that punt really changed things around.”

On being undefeated: “Here we are a third of the way through our season. We’re 4-0. We can’t be better than that. But as a coach, there’s still plenty of room for improvement and we can get a whole lot better. Again, I think anytime you get your kids to play hard and play every play like it’s the last play they’re ever going to play, you’ve got a group of guys who really care about each other and love one another and you win a turnover battle and you can get physical, you’ve got a chance to win. I’m very happy that we’re 4-0 right now.”

On beating West Virginia: “This is just really another game on the schedule for us. That’s how we approached it. That’s how our kids are taking it. We know that we haven’t accomplished anything yet. We’ve got a very humble group. We know we’ve got to work really hard. But it’s always good to beat West Virginia, especially after seven [straight games] of not beating them. And also to be able to shut out a team with the offense that they had. I just think it’s another win for us this year and we’ve got to keep everything in perspective and keep working.”

On the win for the program: “To have the game on national TV, here in Baltimore at M&T Bank Stadium, it’s very rewarding and very satisfying. We don’t take it lightly, but we know that we still have so much more in front of us that we’ve got to accomplish so we can’t sit here and just think we’ve arrived after four games. We’ve still got eight more to go.”

On team defense: “I really like our team. I’ve preached it from day one that everyone’s got to go out and practice like they’re a starter because they never know when that opportunity’s going to arise. Isaac [Goins] and Will [Likely] played very well today and A.J. Hendy steps in at the nickel for us and picks a ball off and gets a touchdown. They did a great job in coverage and we were able to get some pressure up front, so it’s neat to see. It’s neat to see from the standpoint that the things we’re telling our guys come true if they just do those things that we ask them to do.”

On wide receiver Deon Long: “[Deon Long] is happy. He’s probably the happiest guy in that locker room. I tried to keep him calm all week long. And he’ll be the first to say it wasn’t about him or anything like that. Last week, he was on me about going back to Connecticut, so I was on him this week. I just told him, ‘Hey, you don’t have anything to prove to anybody. Just go out there and play your game.’ And it was a very physical football game. It was very physical. West Virginia really got after us and we got some guys bumped up. I’m proud of him, but proud of all the guys.”

On the brand and recruiting: “I don’t think we could have scripted today any better. All we’re trying to do is grow our brand and get people behind us. We’re just going to do what we can to attract more student-athletes to our program and let the fans know what we’re doing here. I thought today was a great experience. The state of Maryland won, the city of Baltimore won, we all won.”

On what they did differently from the Connecticut game in the red zone: “We didn’t beat ourselves. We didn’t make mistakes that we made in previous games. The guys are being a little more focused. If we can get down in the red zone and score more touchdowns, it would make things a lot easier.”

On place kicker Brad Craddock: “I like Brad’s approach to what he’s doing. There’s a lot more focus, a lot more confidence in what he’s doing. It’s good to see because he works hard and his parents came over from Australia to watch the game, so I was happy for him that they were able to watch him play.”

On the experience of playing in this environment at M&T Bank Stadium: “It was crazy. We haven’t beaten West Virginia in [10] years. We wanted to come out with a statement. Even with the rain, we had the students and our families here, and it was just a great feeling.”

On what Maryland did defensively to shut down West Virginia’s offense: “Basically, we just had to stop the run; if they can’t get the run going then they can’t get anything else going because that is where their offense starts. We focused on stopping the run, and the D-line did an awesome job of getting through the holes and making it easier for the linebackers to make tackles.”

On the team’s performance: “West Virginia is always a tough team, so to be up 37-0 on a team like that is great.”

On his interception: “I tried to locate the ball first, but I am just glad I made the play.”

On playing with the new uniforms:

“It felt good. We appreciate everything Kevin Plank (Under Armour, CEO) does for the program. We know that it took six months to make the helmets. The uniforms all together show off that ‘red pride’. When he delivered the message to us this morning we just wanted to wear those jerseys and represent.”

On the balance of this Maryland team: “We are a very balanced team. Today the defense stepped up. They [forced] six turnovers, and gave us unbelievable field position. The biggest thing for us is that, offensively, we didn’t play that well, but we still put points up on the board. Instead of field goals, we need touchdowns, and that is the biggest flaw right now is being able to punch the ball in and put teams away early.”

On the team’s potential: “The sky is the limit for us. We have been saying that since fall camp. Offense has had a lot of explosive plays and we have put points on the board, so for the defense to go out there and then they put points on the board with pick sixes, they are really helping out the offense and doing an unbelievable job.”

On the defense forcing six turnovers: “It is the same process, but this time I had to step up and be the starter. We just had to play our defense, and just make plays and force turnovers, and that is just what we did.”

On what kind of tone defensive back A.J. Hendy’s interception set for the defense: “We actually called that play out. I told him it was going to the out route, so we were confident we could make a play when they threw the ball. They were talking smack the whole week before, so we just wanted to put it on film and let our work show.”

On the trash talk being a factor: “A little competition, that’s all it was. We kept it on the field and shook hands after; so it’s just competitive and going back and forth.”

On if it was easier to kick in the light rain: “I don’t know that’s the first time I’ve ever kicked in rain before so the ball felt pretty heavy to me, especially that kickoff after the extra point at the end; it felt like kicking a brick. It might be a little easier but I’d prefer it dry.”

On how he felt about his kicking before the game: “I’ve been feeling pretty confident all year so it was the same as last week and the same as the week before. It’s just doing that same routine and same structure every week and it’s feeling pretty good.”

On if he talked with former Baltimore Ravens kicker Matt Stover before the game: “I talked to Matt twice this week, talked to him last night which was good. I talked to him about the wind in the stadium and everything. He’s helped me a lot. I’m truly blessed to have him around to give me a hand.”

On what the win today meant: “It was definitely good to get off to that 4-0 start. It’s been a long time since Maryland has done that so it shows how much a camaraderie the team has right now. Defense is playing lights out, offense is playing pretty good, too, so it’s definitely a good start for us to be 4-0, especially going into ACC play.”

On his difficult touchdown catch: “Nothing is really easy for me so I just kept my eye on the ball and went up, made a play and came down with it.”

On playing at M&T Bank Stadium in hit hometown: “You can only work on certain things; you can only hope it goes a certain way. I couldn’t expect or ask for a better way for the game to turn out. To be here in Baltimore, the hometown, and get my first touchdown catch, it was definitely a good outcome.”

On what makes the Maryland nickel defense so hard to go up against: “There’s a lot of speed out there, the guys in front of me are working hard.”

On the defensive packages used against West Virginia: “West Virginia’s offense has some good receivers. They’re quarterback has a strong arm but I feel like today we had a good plan for them and we prepared well.”

Opening Statement:“Give Maryland a lot of credit. They whipped us on all three sides of the ball. It’s 100 percent on me. Offensively, we’re as inept as we can possibly be in college football. I accept the responsibility for that. Defensively, we competed. We had some chances in the first half to make something happen. We’re far from a suffocating defense, but I do think we competed. We didn’t compete offensively. Special teams I thought was incredibly average other than Nick [O’Toole] flipping the field several times. We talked about playing smart and we had a bunch of penalties and turnovers. It’s going to beat you every time. I just told the guys that you need to look in the mirror. That’s what I’m going to do. Obviously, what I’m doing offensively is not working. We will do whatever we have to do to fix it and we need everybody in that room to do the same thing; coaches and players.”

On if he knows how to fix the offense:“Yes. Everybody wants to point the finger at the quarterback, but it’s tough. We’ve committed a lot of practice time and a lot of scheme into running the football and when they have five people in the box, and we can’t get a yard, it’s going to cause a problem. We’re not going to use inexperience as an excuse, but we’ve got a lot of inexperienced guys that are not making a lot of plays. When you can’t block it’s tough. We put these guys in position to be able to block and we didn’t. Whether it’s scheming or coaching technique or the practice looks, whatever it is we’re going to try to figure it out. Give Coach Stewart credit. Give Maryland credit. They did a good job last year. Maybe it’s something they’re doing coaching wise they we’re not.”

On if he saw this performance coming:“We knew we weren’t very good offensively at the beginning of the year and we felt like we needed to keep improving and keep improving. Is this a gauge of where we’re at? No. Next week I would anticipate a better offensive performance than this week. We’re going to continue to try to develop and get better. Nothing went our way today. Then we don’t have enough guys who are able to step up. We didn’t respond like we need to.”

On where this leaves the quarterback situation:“There’s a lot of times where it didn’t matter who was back there. We could have had Peyton Manning back there and if you’re not able to get any yards in the run game or not able to set your feet and throw downfield; he didn’t have a chance. I’ll look at it a little bit closer to see how he did. I thought he was operating fine early, but then when he’s not even planting his back foot and getting hit, there’s not a whole lot he can do. We played incredibly poor up front. It was probably as bad as we’ve ever played on the offensive line. Again, I don’t know what we need to do to fix it. It’s 100 percent on me. Maybe we need to change how we practice. Maybe it was something schematically they did, but I doubt it. When you can’t run the ball with five people in the box and you can’t pass protect when they’re rushing four, you’ve got issues.”

West Virginia Players

Defensive Lineman Shaq Rowell

On defensive moral when the offense is struggling:“We lost on all three sides of the ball. Offense, defense, and special teams.”

On taking away some positives:“Nothing. I know I keep saying it, but we really lost on all three sides of the ball. We beat this team seven times in a row, and they came out today ready to play, and they whooped us. We didn’t even put a point on the board today. It’s a disgrace to West Virginia and it will never happen again as long as I’m here.”

On what the next step is:“Just getting back to the drawing board. We just have to keep fighting, keep working. We are going to get better.”

On how the team gets better:“We just have to try to keep getting better not just this week, but moving forward. We have eight more games left, all in the Big 12. Maryland was well prepared this week. They talked trash to the media, and they backed it up today. Coach Randy [Edsall] had those guys ready to play, and they came out there and kicked our butt on all three sides of the ball.”

On the defensive mentality during the game:“All we can do is just play the next play. I mean if it’s a pick six or the offense scores seven, it’s all we can do.”

Safety Darwin Cook

On the Maryland defense:“I mean we just got to compete with their defense. How many turnovers their defense got? Like five? Six? If we had gotten six, it would have been a closer game.“

On the frustration of not scoring:“I mean I’ve been here a long time, so I’ve been on both ends of the stake. I’ve seen it happen before back in 2010. And we’re just getting better as a team and it’s just going to work. “

On getting together as players:“It’s us seniors just keeping everybody on the cool level head. We still got how many more games left? What, eight games left in this season. So we’re going to take all of them one by one.”

On the locker room after the game:“I mean it’s a sorrow a little bit. But you got to get up out of that knack, and get back to it on Sunday. We’ve got to lift and we got practice tomorrow. So it’s no time to hang our head, and we just got to get up on to the next game.”